I'm in the market for a backup deck to my Merfolk, and I'm looking to work my way through a few options. Grixis initially caught my eye because of the highly interactive playstyle, and because it seems to have the tools to handle decks that are bad matchups for Merfolk, such as Affinity and Lantern. Here's a 75 I've put together based on some testing and some looks at the top lists:
I know that Bolt is a somewhat unpopular choice of late, but I think they're handy. I don't like the notion of being cold to random Mirran Crusaders, and Bolt-Snap-Bolt is always a nice bit of reach. I suppose there's an argument to be made for running Temur Battle Rage over it, but I'm still uncertain of how much I like that (which is part of the reason I'm here). As of now, the cards that I'm debating whether I should include or not are the Battle Rage, Liliana, the Last Hope, and Engineered Explosives. Opinions on those cards, any other cards I might be missing, or the list in general welcome.
I'm in the market for a backup deck to my Merfolk, and I'm looking to work my way through a few options. Grixis initially caught my eye because of the highly interactive playstyle, and because it seems to have the tools to handle decks that are bad matchups for Merfolk, such as Affinity and Lantern. Here's a 75 I've put together based on some testing and some looks at the top lists:
I know that Bolt is a somewhat unpopular choice of late, but I think they're handy. I don't like the notion of being cold to random Mirran Crusaders, and Bolt-Snap-Bolt is always a nice bit of reach. I suppose there's an argument to be made for running Temur Battle Rage over it, but I'm still uncertain of how much I like that (which is part of the reason I'm here). As of now, the cards that I'm debating whether I should include or not are the Battle Rage, Liliana, the Last Hope, and Engineered Explosives. Opinions on those cards, any other cards I might be missing, or the list in general welcome.
the bolts are good if you expect a lot of pro black cards
So, under the premise that you will face a diverse metagame:
1)Lightning Bolt: This card is very good in general. The problem is that sometimes it just feels underwhelming in contrast to the rest of the deck. It's versatile and helps in bad matchups like go wide and PW-based control(BGx and UWx). I think playing 1 is right more often than not, but 2 could be a stretch. Test them yourself and see, i think you will end up in a split with Push IF you really want 2 Bolts. 4 Push and 1 Bolt is my personal split, i consider 3-2 to be correct too. Also, 6 one-mana removals should be a little too much, even if you expect lots of creature based combo and go wide. This brings me to the next point.
2)TBR: This card is very good, even if we don't pack giant Goyfs, it still holds its value with DS because those two are that good. I play 1 MB, and 0 SB. I'm pretty sure 0 is incorrect, and more than 2 is also incorrect. 1-2 are the preferred copies, you can manage yourself whether you want them MB or SB. This card basically accomplishes much of what Bolt does against said strategies, but instead of answering, it just kills you opponent. There has to be a crapload of D&T to prefer the extra removal over TBR. TBR also make SBing very easy, if they play too much removal, it's out.
3)Liliana the Last hope: This is in my opinion a very good card in DS strategies. It helps in a variety of matchups which goes from Go Wide to Control and Midrange. It's really all over the place, which makes your SB bigger for broader applications. I think this card deserves a nice 1-2 of in the SB, along LOTV(which probably should be a 2-3 of).
4)Explosives: I've been on and off this card. It's lights out when it's good, and medium to inefficient otherwise. There are few decks that get completly wrecked by it(like Bogles) but it does a good impression of other good cards like By Force and Izzet Staticaster, Dreadbore and whatnot. It remains in my list of cards that stretch your SB large enough to cover a bigger meta(which seems very important in nowadays Modern), which is why i would put it 1-2 in my SB if i can't predict the metagame to some extent.
Other than that, 2-of Dismember without TBR is going to give you a headache, because Dismember doesn't like long games in GDS(because of Snapcaster Mage). I'm still skeptical of "Battle Rage Grixis" builds since we pack less punch that our Green counterpart, but we grind much better. This has been in my opinion the biggest challenge Grixis Shadow players have had since its inception. Players can simply not decide whether it's right to go all in, or maintain a control approach. The metagame in Modern changes too fast and this led to people believe that being all in was the right approach, but i'm not sure it's right, i think the controlling nature of the Grixis shard is what makes this deck good, right now i'm trying all builds and haven't made a choice yet.
If you have any other question i'm happy to help and give you my opinion.
Thanks for taking the time, I feel like this was good advice. I'm thinking that Temur Battle Rage may be where I want to go over Bolt because of the maindeck Dismembers, and that Liliana, the Last Hope also merits a spot (perhaps over Izzet Staticaster? They serve a similar purpose).
I like the 3/2 split on push /bolt. Mirran can just finish the game and that's not something I'm OK with lol . And not having to always worry about lands is nice for the revolted push. I also like tbr. Helps just push through creatures (company, affinity, dredge). I run 1 main and 1 in the side. I bring in the extra tbr against games we need to finish early (Tron, burn, valakut) and the bolt snap bolt also helps accomplish this. And I agree with the sideboard. We need cards that have multiple applications against the wide meta
So, under the premise that you will face a diverse metagame:
1)Lightning Bolt: This card is very good in general. The problem is that sometimes it just feels underwhelming in contrast to the rest of the deck. It's versatile and helps in bad matchups like go wide and PW-based control(BGx and UWx). I think playing 1 is right more often than not, but 2 could be a stretch. Test them yourself and see, i think you will end up in a split with Push IF you really want 2 Bolts. 4 Push and 1 Bolt is my personal split, i consider 3-2 to be correct too. Also, 6 one-mana removals should be a little too much, even if you expect lots of creature based combo and go wide. This brings me to the next point.
2)TBR: This card is very good, even if we don't pack giant Goyfs, it still holds its value with DS because those two are that good. I play 1 MB, and 0 SB. I'm pretty sure 0 is incorrect, and more than 2 is also incorrect. 1-2 are the preferred copies, you can manage yourself whether you want them MB or SB. This card basically accomplishes much of what Bolt does against said strategies, but instead of answering, it just kills you opponent. There has to be a crapload of D&T to prefer the extra removal over TBR. TBR also make SBing very easy, if they play too much removal, it's out.
3)Liliana the Last hope: This is in my opinion a very good card in DS strategies. It helps in a variety of matchups which goes from Go Wide to Control and Midrange. It's really all over the place, which makes your SB bigger for broader applications. I think this card deserves a nice 1-2 of in the SB, along LOTV(which probably should be a 2-3 of).
4)Explosives: I've been on and off this card. It's lights out when it's good, and medium to inefficient otherwise. There are few decks that get completly wrecked by it(like Bogles) but it does a good impression of other good cards like By Force and Izzet Staticaster, Dreadbore and whatnot. It remains in my list of cards that stretch your SB large enough to cover a bigger meta(which seems very important in nowadays Modern), which is why i would put it 1-2 in my SB if i can't predict the metagame to some extent.
Other than that, 2-of Dismember without TBR is going to give you a headache, because Dismember doesn't like long games in GDS(because of Snapcaster Mage). I'm still skeptical of "Battle Rage Grixis" builds since we pack less punch that our Green counterpart, but we grind much better. This has been in my opinion the biggest challenge Grixis Shadow players have had since its inception. Players can simply not decide whether it's right to go all in, or maintain a control approach. The metagame in Modern changes too fast and this led to people believe that being all in was the right approach, but i'm not sure it's right, i think the controlling nature of the Grixis shard is what makes this deck good, right now i'm trying all builds and haven't made a choice yet.
If you have any other question i'm happy to help and give you my opinion.
What are your thoughts about Opt and how some lists are cutting Serum Visions for it ?
Is Kolaghan's Command still maindeckable on the current metagame ? What about LotV MD?
What do you think that are the most efficient way to adapt Grixis Shadow to the current metagame?
So, under the premise that you will face a diverse metagame:
1)Lightning Bolt: This card is very good in general. The problem is that sometimes it just feels underwhelming in contrast to the rest of the deck. It's versatile and helps in bad matchups like go wide and PW-based control(BGx and UWx). I think playing 1 is right more often than not, but 2 could be a stretch. Test them yourself and see, i think you will end up in a split with Push IF you really want 2 Bolts. 4 Push and 1 Bolt is my personal split, i consider 3-2 to be correct too. Also, 6 one-mana removals should be a little too much, even if you expect lots of creature based combo and go wide. This brings me to the next point.
2)TBR: This card is very good, even if we don't pack giant Goyfs, it still holds its value with DS because those two are that good. I play 1 MB, and 0 SB. I'm pretty sure 0 is incorrect, and more than 2 is also incorrect. 1-2 are the preferred copies, you can manage yourself whether you want them MB or SB. This card basically accomplishes much of what Bolt does against said strategies, but instead of answering, it just kills you opponent. There has to be a crapload of D&T to prefer the extra removal over TBR. TBR also make SBing very easy, if they play too much removal, it's out.
3)Liliana the Last hope: This is in my opinion a very good card in DS strategies. It helps in a variety of matchups which goes from Go Wide to Control and Midrange. It's really all over the place, which makes your SB bigger for broader applications. I think this card deserves a nice 1-2 of in the SB, along LOTV(which probably should be a 2-3 of).
4)Explosives: I've been on and off this card. It's lights out when it's good, and medium to inefficient otherwise. There are few decks that get completly wrecked by it(like Bogles) but it does a good impression of other good cards like By Force and Izzet Staticaster, Dreadbore and whatnot. It remains in my list of cards that stretch your SB large enough to cover a bigger meta(which seems very important in nowadays Modern), which is why i would put it 1-2 in my SB if i can't predict the metagame to some extent.
Other than that, 2-of Dismember without TBR is going to give you a headache, because Dismember doesn't like long games in GDS(because of Snapcaster Mage). I'm still skeptical of "Battle Rage Grixis" builds since we pack less punch that our Green counterpart, but we grind much better. This has been in my opinion the biggest challenge Grixis Shadow players have had since its inception. Players can simply not decide whether it's right to go all in, or maintain a control approach. The metagame in Modern changes too fast and this led to people believe that being all in was the right approach, but i'm not sure it's right, i think the controlling nature of the Grixis shard is what makes this deck good, right now i'm trying all builds and haven't made a choice yet.
If you have any other question i'm happy to help and give you my opinion.
What are your thoughts about Opt and how some lists are cutting Serum Visions for it ?
Is Kolaghan's Command still maindeckable on the current metagame ? What about LotV MD?
What do you think that are the most efficient way to adapt Grixis Shadow to the current metagame?
I've liked opt but visions has felt so much better overall. I've done a mix between the two, the random draw is awful but setting up your turns is a lot better
I feel like it's mostly how the community viewed Goyf in DS. They figured if we want it, we go the Jund route and play Bauble to maximize on Goyf. Honestly, Goyf is probably fine in a deck like above, and I have a friend that plays a similar list.
If you look at your specific list, it cuts two Delve creates and adds 4 Goyfs. You don't play Planeswalkers so realistically, the size of Goyf is likely to remain relatively small. It feels like the Tasigurs/Gurmags you cut are just better. They're likely to be just as effective as Goyf.
The problem with Sultai is that you lose a lot in the sideboard, having acess only to Flaying Tendrils as a sweeper seems bad.
I think this could work but the best build for Tarmogoyf is still the Jund/5c Shadow deck.
Hey guys, I said I would test Opt over Thought Scour and here are my thoughts by now:
It DO makes the delve threats a little bit worse, specially early game since you can't cast them at turn 2 consistently without Street Wraith (Although there are times I did cast a t2 Angler ou t2 Tasigur with counter backup, but that means you depend on having two fetches and/or Street Wraith). They're still pretty good but become a bit slower which might be a problem sometimes.
On the other hand, it makes our draws A LOT SMOOTHER specially when we're searching for something (a threat, a land, an answer, etc.) which makes the deck grind a lot more and makes Snapcaster Mage way better.
My current thoughts on this thing is that you might need to: a) make the deck more grindy, which might not be where it wants to be with so many unfair decks running rampant, and b) I might want to try to run Liliana TLH maindeck again. I used to run 1 of her on my list a couple months ago because the local meta was too aggro and by the fact that she won me a lot of games all by herself. On that ocasion, she also helps to fill the graveyard with her -2 ability (although LotV does the same though)
I'm still gonna try it until mid January to have a deeper approach on which matchups gets worse by not playing Scour and how exactly it does or doesn't improve the deck. If anyone else is interested on trying it, please do post your results.
A big reason is that BUG has removal problems. If you want to kill anything that Push/Decay can't kill, your options are: Dismember, Murderous Cut, Victim of Night, Go for the Throat, etc. All of these have problems, while Terminate just doesn't care what you point it at. Second, red tends to give better SB options because you get to play sweepers like Kozilek's Return or Anger of the Gods, and artifact hate like Kolaghan's Command or By Force. Green gives you access to Decay and Pulse, which have their strengths, but probably aren't good enough to compensate.
With red spells getting cut more and more, I think it's worth it to reconsider UB instead of Grixis.
Having smooth pure UB mana feels absolutely great. It greatly increases mana efficiency and prevents awkward situations where you can't EOT opt or stubborn denial because you only have blood crypt up.
It also allows us to reconsider Deprive. I have been very impressed with this card, and it fits the deck's persona as a disruptive tempo deck rather than a control deck. The issue with the card has mainly been its awkward UU cost; the Daze effect is only really relevant when trying to snap-deprive. However with UB instead of Grixis, that is no longer a problem.
The question is what our sideboard would look like without red. But then if you really need red, perhaps consider one sideboard red shock.
I've noticed majority of lists have cut surgical. Any idea why people believe this is correct?
By the way, I Cut Tasigur and went Gurmag/Stubborn heavy and it has been stronnnng.
As much as I love the card (I know I'm gonna get blasted), I have never liked collective brutality in this deck. The velocity generally leaves cards in my hand that I don't want to discard. Sorcery speed instant/sorcery...eh. -2/-2 too late. Life gain, no thanks. For those 2-3 slots I prefer counter magic but please by all means correct me. I might be using it awfully wrong.
One last thing, Pyromancer- Legacy Delver amazing, GDS no thanks. I'd rather go wide with Bitterblossom
It's not the pain that matters, it's the mana efficiency. With grixis you're forced to fetch blood crypt or steam vents second. This means you can't cast any U twice in a turn if you fetch blood crypt or B twice in a turn if you fetch steam vents which drastically reduces your ability to cast all of your 1 mana spells whenever you want. UB also opens up deprive like I said.
It also allows you better control of your life total and avoids awkward shocking to try to get red online.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
I'm in the market for a backup deck to my Merfolk, and I'm looking to work my way through a few options. Grixis initially caught my eye because of the highly interactive playstyle, and because it seems to have the tools to handle decks that are bad matchups for Merfolk, such as Affinity and Lantern. Here's a 75 I've put together based on some testing and some looks at the top lists:
4 Death's Shadow
2 Gurmag Angler
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Street Wraith
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Instants (20)
2 Dismember
4 Fatal Push
2 Kolaghan's Command
2 Lightning Bolt
4 Opt
2 Stubborn Denial
4 Thought Scour
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Thoughtseize
Lands (18)
1 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Steam Vents
1 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Collective Brutality
2 Disdainful Stroke
1 Izzet Staticaster
2 Kozilek's Return
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Stubborn Denial
2 Surgical Extraction
I know that Bolt is a somewhat unpopular choice of late, but I think they're handy. I don't like the notion of being cold to random Mirran Crusaders, and Bolt-Snap-Bolt is always a nice bit of reach. I suppose there's an argument to be made for running Temur Battle Rage over it, but I'm still uncertain of how much I like that (which is part of the reason I'm here). As of now, the cards that I'm debating whether I should include or not are the Battle Rage, Liliana, the Last Hope, and Engineered Explosives. Opinions on those cards, any other cards I might be missing, or the list in general welcome.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
1)Lightning Bolt: This card is very good in general. The problem is that sometimes it just feels underwhelming in contrast to the rest of the deck. It's versatile and helps in bad matchups like go wide and PW-based control(BGx and UWx). I think playing 1 is right more often than not, but 2 could be a stretch. Test them yourself and see, i think you will end up in a split with Push IF you really want 2 Bolts. 4 Push and 1 Bolt is my personal split, i consider 3-2 to be correct too. Also, 6 one-mana removals should be a little too much, even if you expect lots of creature based combo and go wide. This brings me to the next point.
2)TBR: This card is very good, even if we don't pack giant Goyfs, it still holds its value with DS because those two are that good. I play 1 MB, and 0 SB. I'm pretty sure 0 is incorrect, and more than 2 is also incorrect. 1-2 are the preferred copies, you can manage yourself whether you want them MB or SB. This card basically accomplishes much of what Bolt does against said strategies, but instead of answering, it just kills you opponent. There has to be a crapload of D&T to prefer the extra removal over TBR. TBR also make SBing very easy, if they play too much removal, it's out.
3)Liliana the Last hope: This is in my opinion a very good card in DS strategies. It helps in a variety of matchups which goes from Go Wide to Control and Midrange. It's really all over the place, which makes your SB bigger for broader applications. I think this card deserves a nice 1-2 of in the SB, along LOTV(which probably should be a 2-3 of).
4)Explosives: I've been on and off this card. It's lights out when it's good, and medium to inefficient otherwise. There are few decks that get completly wrecked by it(like Bogles) but it does a good impression of other good cards like By Force and Izzet Staticaster, Dreadbore and whatnot. It remains in my list of cards that stretch your SB large enough to cover a bigger meta(which seems very important in nowadays Modern), which is why i would put it 1-2 in my SB if i can't predict the metagame to some extent.
Other than that, 2-of Dismember without TBR is going to give you a headache, because Dismember doesn't like long games in GDS(because of Snapcaster Mage). I'm still skeptical of "Battle Rage Grixis" builds since we pack less punch that our Green counterpart, but we grind much better. This has been in my opinion the biggest challenge Grixis Shadow players have had since its inception. Players can simply not decide whether it's right to go all in, or maintain a control approach. The metagame in Modern changes too fast and this led to people believe that being all in was the right approach, but i'm not sure it's right, i think the controlling nature of the Grixis shard is what makes this deck good, right now i'm trying all builds and haven't made a choice yet.
If you have any other question i'm happy to help and give you my opinion.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
What are your thoughts about Opt and how some lists are cutting Serum Visions for it ?
Is Kolaghan's Command still maindeckable on the current metagame ? What about LotV MD?
What do you think that are the most efficient way to adapt Grixis Shadow to the current metagame?
If you look at your specific list, it cuts two Delve creates and adds 4 Goyfs. You don't play Planeswalkers so realistically, the size of Goyf is likely to remain relatively small. It feels like the Tasigurs/Gurmags you cut are just better. They're likely to be just as effective as Goyf.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
I think this could work but the best build for Tarmogoyf is still the Jund/5c Shadow deck.
Hey guys, I said I would test Opt over Thought Scour and here are my thoughts by now:
It DO makes the delve threats a little bit worse, specially early game since you can't cast them at turn 2 consistently without Street Wraith (Although there are times I did cast a t2 Angler ou t2 Tasigur with counter backup, but that means you depend on having two fetches and/or Street Wraith). They're still pretty good but become a bit slower which might be a problem sometimes.
On the other hand, it makes our draws A LOT SMOOTHER specially when we're searching for something (a threat, a land, an answer, etc.) which makes the deck grind a lot more and makes Snapcaster Mage way better.
My current thoughts on this thing is that you might need to: a) make the deck more grindy, which might not be where it wants to be with so many unfair decks running rampant, and b) I might want to try to run Liliana TLH maindeck again. I used to run 1 of her on my list a couple months ago because the local meta was too aggro and by the fact that she won me a lot of games all by herself. On that ocasion, she also helps to fill the graveyard with her -2 ability (although LotV does the same though)
I'm still gonna try it until mid January to have a deeper approach on which matchups gets worse by not playing Scour and how exactly it does or doesn't improve the deck. If anyone else is interested on trying it, please do post your results.
Thoughts ?
Having smooth pure UB mana feels absolutely great. It greatly increases mana efficiency and prevents awkward situations where you can't EOT opt or stubborn denial because you only have blood crypt up.
It also allows us to reconsider Deprive. I have been very impressed with this card, and it fits the deck's persona as a disruptive tempo deck rather than a control deck. The issue with the card has mainly been its awkward UU cost; the Daze effect is only really relevant when trying to snap-deprive. However with UB instead of Grixis, that is no longer a problem.
The question is what our sideboard would look like without red. But then if you really need red, perhaps consider one sideboard red shock.
How will the deck fight artifacts? What about boardwipess? No izzet?
It's just a bad idea.
I've noticed majority of lists have cut surgical. Any idea why people believe this is correct?
By the way, I Cut Tasigur and went Gurmag/Stubborn heavy and it has been stronnnng.
As much as I love the card (I know I'm gonna get blasted), I have never liked collective brutality in this deck. The velocity generally leaves cards in my hand that I don't want to discard. Sorcery speed instant/sorcery...eh. -2/-2 too late. Life gain, no thanks. For those 2-3 slots I prefer counter magic but please by all means correct me. I might be using it awfully wrong.
One last thing, Pyromancer- Legacy Delver amazing, GDS no thanks. I'd rather go wide with Bitterblossom
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
I did test all afternoon with 4x opt and 0x Visions, and I was impressed.
I feel like I'm winning more games whenever I test opt, even when I don't like the card.
In a deck trying to go long, serum feels way better for Jeskai/UW, but the immediate need for a card feels good for GDS
It also allows you better control of your life total and avoids awkward shocking to try to get red online.
Tendrils is still available in B.
Stick with it?
By all means, if you make the deck share your results, I just think UB is extremely flawed.